What are the overarching employee development goals? We’ve alluded to having a set of solid goals in mind when you approach employee performance enhancement, training and implementing positive change. So, a lot of different departments all must hearken to the call of setting goals like these.

Now, the thing with employee development goals is that in such a varied world as business, it’s impossible to be super specific about individual units within basic sets of goals.

This means that there’s no way for me to sit here and list a bunch of concrete goals, but rather, I can only touch on the basic types of goals, average things they entail, and what to bear in mind and to undertake to reach these types of goals.

It’s impossible to be more specific than this, but if I could, you know I would. So, let’s at least look at these different sets of goal types, and see what we’re more or less up against.

The most immediate and obvious types of goals you’re going to encounter are job goals. These are goals of efficiency and success in performing work and accomplishing goals set before the employees themselves. This also entails successful, constant adherence to protocols and regulations, as well as guidelines and other similar things. These are all about change management and positive reinforcement.

Next are project goals, which are either marketing strategies, massive change, training or the implementation of new products or services. These goals, well, how to reach these is entirely up to you and dependent on the situation at hand. I can’t really advise on these, because there’s no telling what your situation might be with this one.

As for professional development goals, these are all about cross training and improving the levels and quantity of qualifications and certifications of your staff so that they may perform more massively parallel, and that they may handle more roles in an emergency.

Performance goals are more personal, including things like being punctual, following conduct policies and guidelines, and putting forth extra effort or devotion to performing one’s job with general admirability. These are the hardest things to approach, because they are very personal, and must be handled with a lot of care, so to not cause people to feel insulted, undervalued or overly judged, while still getting them to take personal performance flaws as serious and important to address.

What can I say about these other than to bear in mind what must be considered in change management, too. That is, to be an approachable, friendly adjutant, while at the same time being authoritative and capable of solid, stable people skills.

Now, if only it were possible to be more specific, I could give you some specific guidelines for how to achieve employee development goals, because I could only be vague about what kind of things to implement, and what factors to worry about here. Unfortunately, that’s just how it is. There are so many variables such as industry, corporate culture, contextual circumstances and much more which greatly affect this to the point that being specific is just not an option. Nonetheless, I hope this gave you a better view of the types of goals that there are, and what kind of mindset each one more or less calls for.